


He Is the Chosen One

by wearethewitches



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Dark Anakin Skywalker, F/M, Female Anakin Skywalker, Fix-It, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Jedi, Mild Smut, Multiple Selves, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, Reincarnation, Shmi Skywalker Lives, Single POV, Slavery, Slaves, That's Not How The Force Works, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Unplanned Pregnancy, Young Anakin Skywalker, i only saw the movies again 10k after it had been written, nothing is right, two ani's in one room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 17:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Darth Vader dies.Then, Anakin Skywalker wakes in the body of a dead slave woman in 31 BBY, a year before the Occupation of Naboo.-[oneshot, unfinished; blanket permission to steal or rewrite]





	He Is the Chosen One

Becoming one with the Force, Darth Vader lets his last breath leave him…

…only for smoke to clog his lungs, a wheezing gasp escaping a fragile ribcage that seems so small, yet so _powerful_. He blinks hurriedly, fires flickering around him. Pain bursts across his front and his arms and he reflexively pushes up, realising with horror that he’s on a lit bed of coals. Flames lick at his skin – _skin, not black durasteel, **what is going on** _– and he pushes upwards with the Force, flying high out of what is some sort of deep-set pit in the ground.

“ _What is this?_ ” calls out someone in Huttese, the language causing involuntary shivers up his spine as Vader lands on the sandy floor. He looks up and around, feeling the beginnings of burns along his arms, the sensation of sand and grit foreign against the soles of his feet. He’s in some kind of Hutt den, next to a wide covered ring full of slaves – fighter slaves, _champions_.

Vader looks at his hands. Pale, almost purple limbs that he flexes and squeezes greet him. Vader has _hands_.

But fingers curl around his shoulder and the outright strangeness of the action causes him to stiffen. Luke is the only one who has touched him voluntarily, these past twenty-three years. Only Luke. The grasp tightens and then it tugs, almost painful; Vader is turned around to face an armed guard and behind them, the Hutt, Nyarla.

“ _What is this?_ ” the guard demands of him, a blaster digging into his chest as he drags him to his feet. The action makes a rattling noise and Vader registers the stiffness of his neck, horror dawning on him as he realises he’s wearing a collar with the broken remnants of a chain. “ _How did you jump out of there?_ ”

“ _Force-user!_ ” Nyarla shouts, an uneasy jeering rising from the well-dressed crowd at her side. Inside the ring, the slaves looks uneasy and scared. “ _Bring her forwards!_ ”

Vader thinks, _her?_ Then he grabs the wrist of the guard and twists, hauling them over his back to the ground, using the bare heel of his foot to smash it against his face. Their nose concaves, green blood splattering across their face, the sand and Vader’s foot – Vader’s slim, dirty foot, from which he looks up, following the line of his legs to his crotch.

He feels only a smidgen of confusion then, at why Nyarla the Hutt is calling Vader _her._

“ _Good guards are hard to come by! Stop that!_ ” Nyarla shouts and Vader reaches for the Force instinctively, annoyance rising into a blistering arc of power. His arm rises, hand shaped in a familiar pose, while below her the guard fatally seizes, going slack.

Nyarla starts to choke from the Force of his action. Vader does not revel in it, only squeezing tighter.

When the Hutt falls over sideways dead, the panic _really_ begins, the first blaster-bolt firing. Vader dodges, feeling the muscles of his legs – _her legs?_ – and the taught flesh across his – _her?_ – body. It is a privilege to somehow have a full body again, one that reacts to his every command and whim. His only misstep comes when he attempts to reach for his lightsaber and finds nothing there.

“Fear me!” Vader howls, forcing his empathy outwards, radiating _fear_ and _submission_. His shout echoes throughout the cavern and it’s definitely feminine, despite its low tenor. This cannot be what lies beyond life – what of the planes of existence where ghosts tread? He steals a blaster – he kills all he sees, except the slaves. They get to live for that sole reason.

When the den is quiet and bodies litter the floor, Vader reigns himself in. The Force used to be like the sea to him, strange and always slipping past his fingers – but now, in his later years, it is more like the vastness of space. It goes on and on, forever and ever. There is nothing to grasp because the Force is all around him – it is a constant of life, with no limitations. If the Force is space, then Vader is a star, burning bright in the vacuum and if he wishes to use the Force, all Vader must do is _expand_ and take more of the world into himself.

“Where am I?” he asks the slaves. He sees their eyes flickering between him and the bodies; they will search for their transmitters as soon as Vader leaves, of that he is certain. Vader must meditate – only by looking inwards will he find the explosive device that is surely under his skin, if he too is a slave. Then he will be able to cut it out, or at least defuse it. “What planet are we on?”

“Or-Orvax!”

 _Orvax – we’re barely three hours at lightspeed from Tatooine._ Vader clenches his fists at the thought of being so close to the place his mother died, where they both lived as slaves. _She would be so disappointed in me,_ he reflects morosely, before striding from the room. He doesn’t expect the slaves to follow him.

“Wait- wait, please, Silla!” one calls out, “What do we do? Where are you going? How are you alive?”

“My name isn’t Silla,” Vader says.

“But how did you live?” they ask him and that’s when Vader stops, turning around in the corridor they’re following him down. He stares at them. The slave woman steps forwards, hair braided against her skull for the ways of _Dustglass_. The fact that Vader knows that, _remembers_ that is too much and so he stays silent, staring, watching – waiting.

The woman of Clan Dustglass watches her, too, but she’s desperate. Her voice is full of it when the speaks and the Force around her reeks of muffled confusion.

“You were in the fighting ring and you died. Your neck snapped and you _died_ , Silla. How did you wake up again after that, in the Burning Pit? You’re just a girl – how did you jump? Why did Nyarla call you a Force-user?”

 _Questions. I can answer questions,_ Vader thinks, even as his hand rises to his head, asking himself one of his own. _Am I a Dustglass?_ He wonders, but there are no braids beneath his touch that would say so, only gnarled and twisted curls. Somehow, it is less relieving than Vader thought it would be. _Why does she care?_

“I’m not the Silla you know. The Force brought me here on the eve of my death,” Vader describes slowly. Dustglass gasps, but then there are presences behind him – he feels them in the Force, their intentions clear. Vader whips around, blaster at the ready. It is pitifully easy to dispatch of them when they rampage around the corner.

“Who _were_ you? What is your name?” Dustglass asks, when the bodies have settled once more.

 _Who am I?_ Vader’s mouth dries, his heart thudding against his chest like the wings of a bird. _Luke brought me to the Light again. I cannot be Darth Vader, not without dishonouring him. Not anymore._

Dustglass steps forwards, out from the crowd of her fellows. Her eyes are kind as Vader turns to meet her.

“Do you know?”

He hears Luke’s voice in his ear, a memory even as it sounds like he’s there beside him.

_I’ve accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father – it is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten._

“I know my name,” he says, holding Luke’s unconditional love close to his heart, “for it is _Skywalker_. My name is Skywalker.”

Dustglass positively glows, her happiness in the Force as obvious as the fear from the beings beside her. She comes to stand in front of him, her hand reaching to clasp his spare one. He knows what she is about to say and he is far from disappointed.

“ _May your stories pass to Skywalker’s to come_ ,” she says in the language of the slaves. A part of him unknits, like a stopper coming unplugged; her blessing means _home_.

“ _May the songs of Dustglass guide you,_ ” he replies and quite suddenly, Anakin Skywalker is crying, tears trailing down his cheeks. “ _May the songs of Dustglass guide you._ ”

She catches him as he falls to his knees, her arms coming around his shoulders. She says it again and again – _“May your stories pass to Skywalker’s to come.”_ – like a mantra and he holds onto that, clutching her and listening to her say his Clan words over and over.

It was the calm before the inevitable storm – the gentle nothingness of the breeze before the wall of sand stripped you to the bone. Anakin had laid dying and he’d accepted in the moment, then, that he would never know his son nor his daughter. The only living Skywalker’s – and he would not know their stories, while they would not know his. His path in the Skywalker legacy, his mother’s path and her mentor’s path – all gone in an instant from love.

But now Dustglass says his words – words he’d forgotten, that he’d left behind on Tatooine so long ago, words he’d never thought he’d say again – and Anakin realises the Force would never give him back his true life, not again. This is not the life of Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader. This is the life of a slave called Silla. He is a _she_ – his body belonged to that of a dead woman. _She_ cannot be a Lord of the Sith, _she_ cannot take the title _Father_. The calm before the storm – Anakin feels the storm now inside of him, a grief that cannot be understood nor tamed.

 _What am I? I am a Skywalker – but I am no Sith, no Jedi, no father nor a husband. No longer am I a pet of the Emperor. I am nothing but my name._ Anakin wants to retch, wondering why the Force has done this, why it has torn him from the afterlife and stuffed him in the rejuvenated body of this _Silla_ , a slave who died scrapping for the amusement of a Hutt.

“Tiire,” another slave says, their voice so close that Anakin flinches. “Tiire, someone found the transmitter pairs under Nyarla’s throne.”

And Dustglass replies to them, saying, “We need to find our transmitters and get them out, before this place is overrun. Someone will get the word out that Nyarla’s dead.”

“I’m an engineer,” Anakin finds himself- finds _herself,_ saying. Dustglass sounds like a leader, someone who knows what they’re doing. Anakin certainly doesn’t. She offers what she can, what she knows she can do. “I can make a scanner to find them. I’ve invented one before.”

Dustglass cups her hand around Anakin’s chin, eyes wet and hopeful. “Do you really?”

“I do, truly,” Anakin swears, before saying something she has not said in decades. “I can help you.”

And so, she helps.

* * *

Anakin, of course, does not go from full-on Sith Lord all the way to good person. Luke’s insistence of goodness to be found within stays with her, a drumbeat on her soul – but Anakin is the first to shoot and the first to inflict deliberate violence. She pours her rage and her anger into productive avenues, defending Nyarla’s Palace from invaders as they, the former-enslaved, take control of it and everything within.

“You’re our very own verza-ah – we call you _Verza_ , now,” Dustglass – Tiire – says to her in joy, though she does not know the depths of Anakin’s self-hatred and how the title burns. The verza-ah is a flightless avian predator on Orvax with an impossibly fast beak, squashing bugs and reptiles of the sands in its jaws, relentless – being called _Verza_ , like she is their leashed dog, reminds her too much of the Emperor for comfort.

She says nothing.

Kura, Tiire’s second in command, fidgets at the sight of Anakin’s blank face. Unlike Tiire, she’s not from one of the slave clans, never been inducted under a mentor and taught how to survive in the unfair universe. But she doesn’t flinch or look away when she’s scared and her lekku don’t twitch in fear, not anymore. Kura is learning control and peace – slowly.

“Verza Skywalker should not be talked about to our enemies,” Kura says to Tiire, attempting to calm her enthusiasm. “The others should not have chanted _Verza-Verza-Verza_ when they retreated. We stick together. We do not single each other out. That leads to examples being made.”

“But if they know we have a good fighter amongst us, then they will leave us alone!”

“I’m a figurehead,” Anakin says. Both Tiire and Kura look to her in confusion at her interjection. “Both of you are right. They will leave us alone if they think me strong enough – but they will test it eventually, just as they will bring a larger force to get rid of us, the nuisances. We need to figure out a long-term plan. The Palace is too big to defend on our own and a lot of Nyarla’s defences came from her reputation as a Hutt – no-one wants to deal with a Hutt.”

“Are you saying we should abandon this place?” Tiire asks, quiet. Her eyes lock onto Anakin, the gash over her collarbone resting in a place of pride. Tiire is proud of being free – unlike many, she remembers what it was like in the first place.

“We either leave or we go out and free more slaves, who will help us defend this place. It is too big. There are only thirty of us,” Anakin explains shortly. It feels strange to give advice to those that see her as equal – Sidious humoured her, but he did not treat her opinion like something of worth. Tiire and Kura are not like that.

Tiire rubs her hands together, nodding. “You are right, Verza. To free the slaves though, we must make an offensive team.”

“Or a subtle one,” Kura badgers her, Tiire nudging Kura playfully before smiling at Anakin.

“What do you suggest, Skywalker? You are a warrior. You know our strengths and weaknesses. What say you to this venture?”

Anakin weighs her options, trailing her hand over her arm, feeling the smooth hairless skin of it. Silla was Near-Human, not quite baseline – Anakin feels relieved of sorts that she has hair on her head at all, having learnt over the past three weeks how to care for it in the privacy of her room, here in Nyarla’s Palace. It has been a learning experience, having a female body, but Anakin has adapted to worse before – spending half her life in a prosthetic suit seems like a fair trade-off.

“I could be your figurehead,” Anakin says, building on what she said before. “I could go out and free them myself and bring them back here to you both for safety.”

“What if our enemies discover you aren’t here? They’ll attack,” Kura points out.

“Blaster-training. Every slave should know how to fire one. I’ll teach two people and they will teach two people, on and on until everyone knows. I’ll oversee the operation myself and when I’m satisfied, I’ll go out and bring more slaves home.”

“Do we have enough weapons for that?”

“We should,” Tiire nods. “We even have beasts we can let loose on them, if it comes down to it.”

They agree on Anakin’s plan and that evening after second-meal, she takes Tiire and Kura to the fighting ring, using crates and useless objects for target practice. She makes them learn how to aim and fire with two different blasters, short-range and long-range. Kura has the better aim, but Tiire is can’t hit the broad side of a bantha.

“So long as you can teach another, it doesn’t matter,” Anakin eventually says. “Keep behind cover if you’re ever attacked.”

The next day, there is another skirmish and the smell of bodies finally starts to bother her. Rot and disease spread throughout the corpses around the Palace; Anakin thinks they should have burned them, but that isn’t her place to say. Tiire says leaving them there sets an example of their own. It looks like an army has fallen outside.

Kura and Tiire teach two more people how to fire blasters each the next evening, Anakin watching from the sidelines. She remains silent the entire time, even when a young Bith girl, barely five standard years, comes to sit in her lap. She’s the size of a Human youngling with mottled yellow-green skin and Anakin holds the girl gently, like she’s a fragile piece of glass. It is anathema to the last half of her life that children _want_ to sit with her, seeing her as the defender of the Clan – the one to turn to in times of confusion and hurt.

“ _Can I be a Skywalker_?” the girl asks her, in the language of the slaves. Anakin’s holds onto the girl tighter, replying in the same tongue.

“ _A Skywalker is the one who tells stories. Will you remember my stories and hold them as your own?_ ”

“ _Every story, all of them,_ ” the girl leans her forehead against Anakin’s chest and Anakin wonders if she should – if she should take this girl as a Skywalker and tell her the stories of Lukka the Trickster, of Hukin the Freeborn, of Lëyaw the Krayt-Dragon. Should she draw her against her chest and whisper about the life of Shmi Lars and Darth Vader? It would be her duty to tell this child all the stories she could, to tell her of the rights and wrongs the great Skywalker’s of days gone by, so she might protect herself and wrap the desert around her like a cloak.

Anakin can’t, she realises. Sharing everything like that would ruin her – ruin the girl. She doesn’t deserve to know the horrors Anakin has wrought. A chill runs down her back and she presses a hurried kiss to her cranium in apology.

“ _I’m sorry._ ”

“ _Verza, please!_ ” the girl starts to whine, upset and so desperately alone. Her presence in the Force ruffles Anakin, who feels anger that this young child was ever sold into slavery. She needs to let her anger go – but this is not the place, not with this girl in her lap.

Setting her aside is difficult, but another former-slave takes her, running a soothing hand across their head as Anakin flees the chamber, retreating to the tallest tower. On the balcony there, she braces herself against the wind and lets her anger funnel outwards, into the Force, using it and lashing out at the universe.

Sidious would call it a waste. He would tell her to hold onto it, to _use_ it. Anakin doesn’t want that though. She wants _nothing_ to do with the Darkness inside her. Luke would probably tell her to release her anger to the Force, in the words of Obi-Wan and Yoda.

 _Leia held onto her anger,_ Anakin thinks briefly, the thought nothing more of a wisp across her mind. The thought of Luke holds her at bay from doing as Sidious would wish of her – but Anakin feels anger at him, too. Her son makes her angry. Why was she the one that had to change? Why couldn’t he have embraced the Dark?

Anakin screams into the night. It’s a drawn out sound, full of her pain and her anger; it’s cathartic and slightly embarrassing, but Anakin revels in having a voice. She barely remembers what she used to sound like before the rasp of the vocoder became her everything. She couldn’t remember the pure joy of simple adrenaline – her suit held her vitals stable, always.

Now, she has a body. She has a life that she doesn’t know what to do with. The only thing so far that she has for herself is how she does her hair every morning – washing it and brushing it have become ritual-like actions that Anakin claims solely for herself, unlike the rest of her patrolling around the compound each day.

Her hands idly reach up, feeling the heavy locks where she’s tied them tight in a plait like her mother used to. _Mine_ , she thinks, _my hair. My choices._ Anakin could leave it out or she could tie it up – she doesn’t have to put it in a tiny ponytail and wear a stringy Padawan braid behind her ear, or always, _always_ wear her helmet. Anakin gets to choose.

This is Anakin’s life.

* * *

The vaults in Nyarla’s Palace are unfathomably disorganised. Two months into freedom, the Palace hosting over a hundred former-slaves defending their freedom, Anakin spends her evenings trying to sort through Nyarla’s abominable system – if there even is one – alongside over two dozen of them. At the door, Ijuuti and three others writes down a log, while Gav and Hilana help empty a corner so they might put things in lines and piles.

Anakin is in the depths of the vaults. Something calls to her and she doesn’t know what, but the Light is in her grasp, sometimes. When the Dark overtakes her, that _something_ flickers out, disappearing. At first, it made her angry – how dare the Force deny her something it _wants_ her to have? But then she came to terms with it, that whatever this _something_ is, grasping the Light side of the Force is her only way to find it.

“I’m not a good person,” Anakin says to Kura. The other woman hesitantly rests a hand on her shoulder, lekku swaying slightly.

“You are Verza Skywalker. The concept of good doesn’t apply – you just _are_.”

Just _being_ is something Anakin has already internalised. She is nothing but her name, Anakin Skywalker; except she is the Verza of Orvax and she was once Darth Vader. She has no purpose except to be.

But Kura is impossibly perceptive and she presses a hand to Anakin’s cheek. “Who are you?”

“Anakin Skywalker,” she says.

“And who is Anakin Skywalker?” Kura presses. “Is she a freedom fighter? Is she a slave?”

“I just _am_ ,” Anakin snaps, shifting away from Kura’s hand – however, Kura is insistent.

“You need a purpose. You need a code to live by and _personality._ ”

“You sound like you’ve been talking to Tiire,” she snaps.

Kura glares. It’s the first time she’s ever done that with Anakin. “And Tiire’s right. Just _surviving_ is not _living._ What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What are you trying to find in the vault? Verza, you are not just supposed to _be_ – and being ‘good’ is impossible in the world we live in. Nothing in this life is good unless we make it so.”

“I’m not a good person,” Anakin says.

“We don’t care, Skywalker.” Kura shakes her head, promising her, “I swear. You are our Verza, for as long as you want us. Without you, none of us would be free.”

Throughout the Palace, there is a shift. Anakin hears the phrase _our Verza_ more than once and slaves rise up, taking over more of her duties. She finds her routes being traipsed through by guards, blasters in hand and stolen armour over their shifts; outside, the bodies that stink up the air and bring scavengers to their doorstep are searched and burned; and invites – the invites!

Dozens of ex-slaves come up to her and invite her into their Clans, to their beds and their activities. Anakin finds her mornings taken up with combat training that slaves _ask_ for, instead of being forced to and her noon naps spent surrounded by at least half a dozen beings at once, sleeping during the hottest hours of the day on silks and cushions. Afterwards, they drag her to do helpful chores – like sewing the newly saved and the growing children new clothes, like playing learner’s-sabaac to assist in numeracy and teaching the illiterate to read and write Basic.

And that’s nothing to say about the Force-sensitives she brings under her wing, however unwittingly.

Of all ages, young and old, there are ex-slaves who have the potential to become Force-users. They can sense whenever she is angry – some even join her when she screams on top of the Sky Tower, as they call it, lashing out at the Force for the misdeeds the universe has wrought them. When it happens, Anakin turns a blind eye, up until the first child of a Padawan-age turns their eyes yellow with hate for the world. That is when she becomes pro-active.

“All those that wish it – but you _especially_ ,” Anakin points at the teenage girl, once used for her body by her old master, “will meditate with me. I will teach you about the Force and katas for inner peace.”

“Like the Jedi?” the yellow-eyed teen asks.

“Like a Force-user,” Anakin says, calling on the Dark Side for power, letting her emotions fuel her grasp of the Force where the Jedi call upon the Light Side with detached focus. Like the girls, her eyes blaze, but they’re electrum gold rather than sickly, neon yellow. “I am no Jedi and I am no Sith. You need control and I will teach you.”

“And me?” another asks.

“What about me?”

“Can I, too?”

Her mornings turn longer. Before the sun rises, Anakin sits in meditation with her group of students. It’s an inconceivable notion that she might teach them Jedi or Sith practices, when both Orders only call for single master-padawan groups – which is why it works better, she thinks. In those early, dark mornings, Anakin helps them find their centres, each to their own method. For some, the contentment of detachment is where they find peace; for others, it is in knowing Anakin is there beside them with her Force presence to lean on for support.

They break their fast with the other ex-slaves. Tiire made it mandatory that everyone eat twice-daily at least, to make up for how so many are used to eating once or even not at all, for days on end. _Everyone deserves food, water, shelter and emotional recognition and support_ , she’d decreed. After eating, her students follow her in a trail to where the fighters learn combat, first stretching and going through lightsaber katas – of which she tells them nothing, of which she says _it’s exercise, nothing more_ – until the time comes that Anakin turns to physical combat.

It’s like training an army, or teaching younglings in the salles. To Anakin, sometimes the reminder burns and she can go hot and cold; sometimes she uses the Force, sometimes she does not. When she does, it is to move the arms and limbs of struggling soldiers, or to demonstrate acrobatics in a slow enough manner for them to copy.

Anakin believes it is because of her focus – of how she discards the _something_ the Force tries to lead her to every time she reaches for the light, of how she balances her emotions with her duty – that gets her through the vaults without straying. Their supplies are supplemented by the occasional slave-raid Anakin goes on, rescuing bundles of people from masters and slave-traders alike, taking all the food and provisions she can find before returning to the Palace.

“The newly saved whisper about this place,” Tiire discusses with her, “It is a known stronghold of the freed. Nyarla’s name has been forgotten – they call this Verza’s Palace, now.”

“We’ll be attacked by a host, before too long,” Anakin bounces her knee, standing abruptly as her nerves turn alight with anticipation. Her mind whirls, thinking about their impact here. “We have to establish a presence in the economy. The people of Orvax won’t like the lack of money floating around with the disruption of the slave trade.”

“What do we do?” Tiire asks, eager to hear her reply.

“The vaults – we’re through the first and there are so many things there that could be wanted. If we hold auctions, sell the things and introduce the credits into Orvax through trade. We could have food, proper clothes and weapons.”

“We’d need a representative that isn’t you,” Tiire points out. Anakin nods in agreement. “You’re too much of a target. Kura isn’t suited to public speaking.”

“Not yet. She could be, though. If she learns to hold her own against…” Anakin trails off, thinking of the _fear_ and _submission_ she can radiate. She did it the first hour she arrived here after her resurrection. “I can train her. Her resolve can be built up over time.”

“But do we have time, Verza?” The Dustglass frets, hands pressing against her knees, all that moves in the stillness of her anxiety. Slaves in the hands of Hutt’s that show fear are seen – are picked on till they break, just as badly as the defiant.

“We have enough.”

* * *

Kura takes well to the training. It does not surprise Anakin in the slightest. Any slave that can learn to glare at danger in so little time as she did has the inherit backbone to become a negotiator; that their future clients have been contacted and confirmed as Hutt’s makes the transformation of Kura’s spine to the toughness of durasteel all the more important.

“They will try to cheat us, even enslave you again,” Tiire impresses on her, “and you must not let them.”

Kura’s eyes flash, hard and brave. “I will not,” she swears, before leaving with an armed squadron of guards. Two dozen ex-slaves, trained by Anakin herself, have all gone through the same process that Kura has – and better, it was during their combat training, when fighting against both Anakin and her Darksider Padawans.

The Palace doubles its guard with Kura’s mission away. The children who like to run through the underground tunnels, mapping them for the adults, are all called inside and the entrances they discovered, watched. The Sky Tower, daily, is screamed from and the air around it battered with the Dark Force. Anakin feels her anxiety and her worry slip and slide, seeping through the air into the walls of the Tower itself; she worries that the Palace will eventually become as Dark as her stronghold on Mustafar and worse, she has no-one to talk to about the possibility, no way to know how to correct and balance it.

“I’m the Chosen One, destined to bring Balance to the Force,” she whispers to herself, on one of the rare times she’s left alone to her own devices. _But what if it were Luke, instead? He was as powerful as I – and his sister! So much anger inside. If she Fell, Luke would be her other half, the Light to her Dark. They loved one another, I could sense it in his thoughts. If only she trained as he did…_

Luke and Leia. Truly, it was a miracle they were ever named as such. Luke Skywalker being his son made sense – for the name _Luke_ comes from _Lukka_ , the first Skywalker on Tatooine. Anakin thinks, surely, that her mother would have told Cliegg and Owen the stories of the Skywalker’s – it’s a way to keep their ancestors alive. Obi-Wan may have stolen Luke away from him, but Owen Lars was the one to raise him, his step-brother through Cliegg.

But Leia’s name, that is a coincidence Anakin finds hard to believe, even now. The story of Lëyaw the Krayt-Dragon is one she took to heart in her youth. Lëyaw Skywalker was a slave who wore her chains like jewellery, for her heart and mind were as strong as the krayt-dragons. _Krayt-Heart_ , she was called by her father, the Hung One, who strangled to death around a golden chain at the hands of his master. Lëyaw was used for her body by her master and she tricked him into loving her, living a life of luxury until bearing a son, who once grown was sold and went on to mentor the next in the Skywalker line.

Leia Organa was raised on Alderaan. How was she named Leia? Did Queen Breha and her consort call her Leia in homage? Did they know where Luke had been living all that time? And if they had, did Owen teach Luke and Leia, too, the stories of the Skywalker’s?

Anakin ponders this up until Kura returns, her spine stiffening as she senses the extra presences in their party when she reaches out to check. Anakin wastes no time in sending a rumbling through the Force, alerting her padawans to the danger. Their auras spike and out in the desert, the two Jedi in Kura’s party becomes all the more wary, sensing their awareness like a warning bell.

Returning to the Palace entrance, Anakin stands by Tiire’s side, noting her many students in pairs throughout the crowd – Light to Dark, keeping each other’s auras steady and more importantly, _hidden._

“What is wrong?” Tiire asks her.

Anakin watches the doors to the Palace open, Kura’s party approaching slowly, on foot as they are. “Jedi, somehow.”

“Jedi? Well, that’s good, yes?” Tiire questions. “The Jedi protect civilians.”

Anakin looks at her in dismay, “Tiire, the Jedi are _gone._ ”

Around them, Tiire is not the only one who is baffled by her words. Anakin feels a dawning apprehension and for the first time, wonders if the Force has brought her somewhere else in time, as well as body.

“Dustglass, what’s the year?” Anakin asks urgently, grabbing her arm. “Tell me!”

And Tiire, in all her confused glory, says: “Thirty-One BBY.”

* * *

“It is here,” the Lady Kura points, arm rising to gesture to the tall, rectangular building the same colour as the sand around it. The structure is somewhat squat, but Lady Kura and her group look to it in pride; they took it from their masters, apparently, so maybe they should.

Qui-Gon forces a placid expression across his face when he senses the Darkness radiating from it, centred in one of the highest of its towers. Beside him, however, Obi-Wan has less luck in restraining his expression, though one of the former-slaves at his side pats his arm.

“Hutt Palaces are the same, yes, but we’ve taken this as our own. Verza Palace is safe for all who wish to be freed of their chains, the House of No Masters – the Verza will protect you and your father,” he consoles Obi-Wan, who nods hesitantly, dutifully playing the part of a freed slave-boy.

When Master Yoda had begun sensing the swelling of Dark and Light in the Force, he had entreated the Council to be cautious in their investigation. Qui-Gon has been sent five weeks ago to the other side of the planet, gathering information with his padawan about recent events; it hadn’t been hard to discover the most blatant. With the death of Nyarla the Hutt at the hands of her slaves, Orvax had been destabilised, which was far from helped when they began freeing their fellow, en masse.

Obi-Wan at first, hadn’t joined him, still healing from injuries taken on Mandalore. When he’s finally joined Qui-Gon, his grief ever-present but slowly fading with time, he’d come with a holo-message from Master Yoda.

“ _Undercover, you must go. Find the source of change, you must. Force-users, Darksiders – careful, you must be, Master Jinn. Mask your presences, you must_ ,” said the Grandmaster, his wizened eyes shadowed even in the blue of his hologram.

Qui-Gon, playing a dangerous game, had thought to do the opposite once he secured their transport to the renamed stronghold – _Verza Palace_ , named after their infamous warrior, the Verza herself. Lady Kura had been generous, offering them a place among them when Qui-Gon told them their cover-story: freed by their master, Obi-Wan’s mother, who ordered them away once their chains were unshackled. Qui-Gon thinks himself lucky that Lady Kura had been so transparent, asking whether their transmitter’s had been removed after deactivation.

Approaching Verza Palace now, his Force presence released and searching, Qui-Gon can feel the pain and the anger that has sunk into the sandstone in the same way peace and serenity clings to the Jedi Temple. It is truly focused on the highest tower – it has not yet spread to the rest of the construct. _Likely, it is where the Darksider lives. Only their continued presence could create such a miasma. I wonder if they are this dreaded ‘Verza’._

There’s no doubt that if the Darksider is trained, they will be able to sense them. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan aren’t hiding any longer, quite deliberately on their part. He fully expects to be greeted by the Darksider when they approach the Palace – he is not disappointed.

The woman is Near-Human, with white skin and a grey marking brushed up along her forehead, hair bundled against her neck in a braided bun. She bubbles with emotion, the Force twisting around her like a storm and her expression matches it. When she looks at them directly, gaze homing in on them, Qui-Gon is surprised at her shock. There is silence, until the Lady Kura greets the leader of the group, who stands side by side with the Darksider.

“Tiire, the negotiation was successful – the Hutt Porloon has agreed to an exchange of goods for Nyarla’s treasures,” Kura states proudly. “I also bargained for the freedom of the slaves in the room for another item they requested.”

“I hope you didn’t have to bargain for the Jedi,” the Darksider utters, “They’re far more valuable than anything we have in Nyarla’s vaults.”

Kura’s expression twists, “Jedi?”

“My apologies, Lady Kura, for the deception,” Qui-Gon replies, causing Kura to twist around and look at him in horror. She steps back, the beings around them quick to raise their weapons as a circle forms.

“Don’t.”

Qui-Gon looks to the Darksider. Her expression wavers – she is staring at Obi-Wan, the Force roiling around her, moving between hate and…and something strange. Something warm.

“You are Jedi,” she says. “Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Cold rushes through him. Qui-Gon’s polite demeanour fades, his shoulders broadening. “How did you know of us? Who are you?”

The Darksider stares at him, eyes flickering in the light. By her side, the woman, Tiire, steps forwards with a defensive expression in place, glaring at them.

“She is our Verza, the Skywalker and our saviour, she who killed the Hutt Nyarla and freed us from our chains!”

“She is a Darksider, a user of the Force who draws power from the Dark.”

Tiire raises her chin. “And?” she questions, brazen. At his side, Obi-Wan exclaims.

“And? The Dark leads to the Fall.”

“I have already Fallen,” the Darksider, Verza, says in disagreement, shaking her head. She reaches out to Tiire, drawing her back. “But I have also Risen. I am committed to balance in the Force and you shall not stop me.”

Qui-Gon stares at her, before reaching out in the Force to sense her intentions. A moment later he is bombarded by outrage – but not from her, no, from the _crowd._ His head whips up, turning side to side and around as he discovers the numerous Force-users. Qui-Gon’s estimation of the situation rises significantly when he realises there is a split – half Dark as the woman and the other half, Light.

“You are a school,” he murmurs, looking back at Verza. “An order of your own. Who are you to lead such an endeavour?”

“My name is Skywalker. I was once a slave and I walked the path of the Light – but my teachers didn’t understand me and no-one _listened_ to me,” she says, hands curling into fists as she stares at him, anger present wholly in the Force. Her eyes bleed electrum and Qui-Gon startles. “I was corrupted by the Sith. I Fell. But through the love of my son, I found the Light again and now, I find a balance within myself. I cannot cast Dark for Light or Light for Dark – for me, there can be no inbetween.”

“We are her students,” says another, their eyes yellow, Darkness filling their aura in a controlled manner that both repulses and astounds Qui-Gon. At their side, a Lightsider rests a hand on their shoulder and the yellow fades. Qui-Gon can see where they touch in the Force, paired together in such a way as to pull each other back and forth to a middle-place.

“You should not have come here,” Verza says to them. “Go.”

“Verza, I offered them sanctuary,” Kura says in a rush. Verza glances at her, frown deep. Qui-Gon watches her indecision, before she finally nods, giving in.

“They shall stay till morning,” Verza decrees, looking to them both. “But the moment the sun rises, you must leave, Master Jedi.”

“How old are you?” Qui-Gon finds himself asking. The Darksider stares at him for a long moment, before Qui-Gon says, “Were you a Jedi youngling who never found a Master?”

“…I had a Master,” she replies, voice quieter than before. “He loved me. He abandoned me to die. You have until sunrise, Master Jinn. Someone find them a room.”

Verza turns around, almost running as she flees the room. Qui-Gon watches her go in interest.

* * *

Before sunrise, as per usual Anakin meditates with her students. So deep in her meditation that she is, Anakin doesn’t realise there’s anything wrong with feeling Obi-Wan’s presence in the Force until her Darkest student, Maranne, becomes restless. Anakin opens her eyes and there he is, her Lightsiders leaning into his calm the how they never lean into her own.

“Kenobi,” she says. Obi-Wan takes many moments to open his eyes, blinking slowly. “You’re changing the dynamic of my class.”

“Is that wrong? You have Dark and Light students.”

“But they aren’t used to you,” Anakin says, “and they’ve only been training for six months. If you want to meditate with Lightsiders, you can take them somewhere else, where my Darksiders aren’t influenced by your Jedi ways. It’s not their path to take.”

Obi-Wan looks at her, a frown growing as his brows furrow. He looks so young – he’s still a padawan and the sight of him is jarring. Anakin barely remembers him ever looking like this, for he was Knighted soon after Qui-Gon Jinn’s death. Which reminds her-

“You should be gone. The sun is up,” she says.

“My Master requests to speak with you,” he replies, before his expression turns somewhat chagrin, “though most likely, he did think I would be back sooner. The sensation of your meditations altogether are…warm.”

“The constant drawing and release of emotions is the sensation you’re describing,” Anakin says, somehow beginning to lecture him. _Her_. Lecturing _Obi-Wan._ The thought of the Force having brought her back to the past is strange enough, but the reality is even stranger.

“Drawing?” Obi-Wan queries, before Maranne snaps.

“The Dark Side. To connect to it, we have to use feelings. We have a symbiotic relationship with the Light. What they release, we feed on. Our goals are met, together. But you wouldn’t know that because you’re a Jedi and you’re all… _wrong_ ,” Maranne says. Anakin rankles along with Obi-Wan at her words, but for different reasons.

“You don’t have to defend me, Maranne,” Anakin tells her, churlish. “The path of the Jedi isn’t for everyone. I’m just unluckier than most.”

“How did the Order do you wrong, Lady Verza?” Obi-Wan asks her, absurdly offended on her behalf. “I’m sure it could be resolved.”

“Only in my mind. The practicalities are impossible – and the end result is one I’d never change,” Anakin says, before realising…it isn’t impossible. Out there on Tatooine, a young Anakin Skywalker still lives with his mother, slaves of Watto both. Anakin _could_ change the outcome of young Ani’s life. It would be easy and better yet, right.

Obi-Wan, ever-perceptive, tilts his head. “Are you sure?” he asks.

For a long moment, Anakin is speechless, trying to find a suitable reply. When it finally comes, it’s surprisingly quiet.

“No. But there’s nothing you can do about it, so stop prying, please.”

The apology across his face is obvious. Her students are glaring at him, but it’s only her opinion he cares for. Obi-Wan stands, bowing deeply.

“My apologies, my lady. I should not have said anything. My Master would like to speak to you before we depart.”

“Inform him that breakfast is mandatory, here. We’ll eat and discuss what he wishes at the same time. The bell rings when the food is prepared.”

Obi-Wan gives another shallow bow and a nod before leaving, twisting on his heel and departing. On his leaving, her padawans mutter to each other. Anakin listens to them talk about his Force-presence and his rudeness; Maranne is particularly hung up on his ‘ignorance’.

Eventually, when their previous calm begins to truly dissipate, Anakin calls them to a stop.

“Back to meditating, everyone.”

When the bells ring for first meal, they meander to the meal hall in a huddled group; when they arrive, the Jedi pair are there, waiting for them.

Qui-Gon Jinn is a charmer when he gets talking. Anakin ignores it, but somehow he still manages to reel her into conversation about life in Verza Palace. Only when he asks how many Force-sensitives are in the building, does Anakin snap back into true awareness of the situation. Qui-Gon is here information-gathering. Soon – if not already – the Jedi Council will know all about her little ‘school’ and who knows what reaction they’ll have to a new and unaffiliated-to-the-Jedi group of Force-users.

 _Not to mention,_ Anakin’s stomach falls, _I mentioned the Sith yesterday._

“That’s not any of your business, Master Jinn.” Sitting up, Anakin pins him with a steadfast glare. “What do the Jedi want with us? Because if your mission here is observation, then will have to ask you to leave… _again_.”

“The Jedi Order are responsible for overseeing those who can access the Force throughout the galaxy,” Qui-Gon says, hands disappearing up his voluminous sleeves. His expression is too full of self-confidence and that dreadful _pity_ , like she is his responsibility. Anakin clenches her fist, feeling the Dark well up inside of her, drawn to her powerful emotions. Qui-Gon’s gaze flickers. “That includes your gathering, Lady Verza, especially considering the state of your stronghold.”

“The Sky Tower is meant for the purpose of letting go,” Anakin immediately explains, briefly in line with his thinking. “The Dark Side can poison you from the inside-out. Catharsis is necessary. Though I agree that the state of the Tower will be abysmal, a year from now.”

Qui-Gon’s head tilts in thought. “You understand what you are doing?”

“I-” Anakin starts, before letting her frustration control her voice. “I don’t know how to do this. But I won’t _stop_ – not when they need me. You can’t have the Light without the Dark – and to be honest, Master Jinn, there are too many Jedi, compared to Darksiders. So, if bringing balance and prosperity to Darksiders means letting a Palace become a Dark Temple, then so be it.”

Opposite her, the Jedi Master is angered by her words. She can feel it, like sour wine on her tongue; Jedi always do let off the most odd Force signatures when they feel. Some of her Light students are like that, when their memories draw them to places of emotion.

“You admit to deliberately creating a Temple to the Dark?”

Anakin meets his displeased expression head-on. “You’re welcome to leave, Master Jinn. This is not your place.”

“You have Lightsiders. They are not meant for this place either.”

“No. But they have no-where else to go and this was their home, first,” Anakin replies. “Or are the Jedi taking in Force-sensitives over the age of eight, now?”

Qui-Gon is tense. He raises his hands and rests them on the long bench in thought, the quiet chattering of over a hundred ex-slaves all around him. Anakin doesn’t bother lying to herself – they are listening to their conversation. It’s what slaves do. It’s all they can do, sometimes. Listen; learn.

“I must speak to the Council,” he professes, standing. “Come, Obi-Wan.”

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan bows his head and Anakin pretends not to see how many of her fellows flinch.

Qui-Gon gives her a short bow. “Thank-you for your hospitality, Lady Verza.”

“Get out.” Anakin says flatly, before she sees Tiire calling over guards, armed with blasters. It’s a first for her, seeing them out at breakfast – clearly, this has been arranged beforehand. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan leaves – but not before Obi-Wan looks back at her, his aura pulsing with _apology-fear-apology-goodbye_.

For some reason, Anakin is sorry to see him go.

* * *

Twenty days later, a ship full of Jedi land less than three clicks from the Palace.

“They aren’t here for you,” Anakin says to Tiire, who is panicking, thinking them to be slavers or Hutts. “It’s the Jedi Order. They’re here for me and my students.”

“We will not let them have us,” one of her students, an elder by the name of Cava, promises. Anakin takes their offered hand and squeezes, briefly reaching out in the Force to offer a ‘Force hug’, as her younger students call it. Anakin would better liken it to a comradery grasp of the shoulder – but that isn’t her call, apparently, when she’s the only one no-one can swamp alone in said ‘Force hug’. She’s far too strong in the Force with too big an aura for her students to ‘hug’.

“Verza, what do we do?” Kura asks her.

Anakin returns her awareness back to the situation at hand. “My students and I have to leave. You’re safe to stay here – keep the legend of Verza up, if you can. I know there are some pretty talented shots, in the guard.”

Tiire reaches, taking her face in her hands. Anakin allows it, craning to rest her head against Tiire’s.

“Come back, when it’s safe.” Tiire kisses her in a familial way, before speaking in their language. “ _May your stories pass to Skywalker’s to come._ ”

“ _May the songs of Dustglass guide you,_ ” Anakin replies, before she calls out to her students. As Tiire makes for normality, calming the community as much as she can with her words, Anakin and her students make for the cave tunnels beneath the surface.

“Scatter in your pairs, hide your Force signatures,” Anakin orders crisply. Her students do as she says – all except Maranne and her Lightsider, Dinari. “You need to go,” she pushes at their shoulders, but they stand there solidly, shaking their heads. “ _Go,_ ” she pushes, desperation leaking into her voice and the Force.

“We can’t. They’ll find everyone, if there’s no distraction,” Maranne says, Dinari nodding along in a perfunctory manner. “We’re going to the Sky Tower. I’m going to make as big a mess as I can. Hopefully, the others can get away. It’s nothing less than what you were going to do.”

Anakin breathes heavily, feeling those powerful lungs inside her tiny ribcage, so very blessedly different from her durasteel armour, whose torso kept her from breathing too deep. She grasps them as tight as she can, arms wrapping around their heads and shoulders. She kisses them, each.

“You go high, I go low,” she says and then they three return back to the Palace. While her two students rush to the Sky Tower, Maranne’s Dark power already projecting so very far, Anakin feels something in the Force. It sings to her, harmonising with her sadness, even as it sings _too late, too late._

Outside, she knows there are over a three dozen Jedi, some with their padawans and some without – most without, she thinks. Anakin runs down into the vaults, following the song inside her head. It gets louder and more thrilling as she gets closer, the doors to the vaults flying open one by one the deeper she gets, with only a hint of the Force leading her.

 _Too late,_ is sung in the background. _Too late._

Nyarla’s vaults of treasures, once trashy and disorganised, are lined up in piles, categorised according to function and usage. Anakin had stopped helping recently, too wound up with the imminent arrival of the Jedi to continue. Since her departure, they’d clearly managed to finish cleaning the last two vaults, for she finds herself in an unfamiliar area.

“Where do you want me to look? What am I trying to find?” Anakin asks aloud, slowing her pace. Reaching out into the Force, Anakin _sees_ it, a rumbling echo of drums beating through her chest. She steps forwards, hands coming to a durasteel box. Her lithe fingers trace the lid, before unlatching it. The Force-song reaches a crescendo in her heart.

When she opens the box, there is a lightsaber inside.

High above, in the Sky Tower, Maranne summons Force Lightning and Anakin looks sharply upwards, the familiar crackle of power echoing through the Force. It feels like pain and vengeance – and abruptly, it ends. Dinari’s subsequent cry in the Force is like a whip across her back.

Grabbing the lightsaber, Anakin spares the design no mind except for where she feels the single switch. It feels thin and light in her hand – but the remnants of its last owner leaves a powerful shadow. Holding it is like touching a bloody breeze, of screams in the night and the familiar call to the Dark.

Anakin comes to the surface entrance of the Palace to find Dinari holding Maranne’s corpse in his arms. He looks dazed and adrift, Jedi surrounding him, with former-slaves surrounding _them_ , blasters all raised. Standing in the entrance hall, the sun casting shadows through the open door, Anakin stares at Maranne, at _her Maranne_ who had yellow eyes when she called upon the Force and defended Anakin and her peers to her last breath.

“Lady Verza, assume, I would,” Master Yoda says. His gimer stick clicks against the floor. “Your Darksider padawan, unavoidable, her death be.”

His words are lances and they draw out anger and hatred. Anakin heaves a wet breath before she steps forwards, hand rising. Dinari is drawn back between the Jedi into the waiting embrace of Kura, who folds the boy to her chest as he falls to the ground, sobbing over Maranne’s still body in his lap. Closer now, Anakin can see the lightsaber burn across her chest in a vertical line.

“Who killed my padawan?” she asks, _burning_ with rage. Electrum eyes and a heart of Darkness – Anakin steps forwards. “Who _murdered_ my padawan?”

Yoda looks at her with unreadable eyes, even as she turns on her lightsaber, the cursed red blade taller than he is.

“They will be named, not.”

The Force billows out with her power. Anakin yells in Huttese, calling him the worst names she knows, striding forwards and striking out only once. Yoda meets her in an instant, holding her red blade above his head with his green as Anakin shouts.

“She was just a girl! She was just a girl and you _killed_ her, you _murdered_ her! Jedi scum! Murderers, all of you! _She was just a girl!_ ”

The lightsaber is old. So very, very old. Delicate. Unused to facing the strong power of Yoda’s new blade. The kyber crystal inside cracks and shatters, the red blade dying in an instant. Anakin falls to her knees, golden-eyed and crying out for the life of her student. Yoda’s lightsabre returns to his belt and when Mace Windu raises his purple blade to her neck in warning, the Grandmaster orders him to stay his hand.

 _Too late,_ Anakin thinks. _I was too late. One strike kill – one strike defence. Too late. Too late._

“You are not welcome here,” Tiire proclaims as the Jedi retreat. “Never again should the Jedi Order darken our doorstep.”

“Live in a Dark Temple, do you,” Yoda says as Anakin stands again, legs wobbling beneath her as she walks away, his words becoming distant as the Jedi escort her out. “Flee the Dark influence, you should, for your Lady Verza be here, not. Influence the Sky Tower, she did. Now, the death of her Dark padawan, stain the Tower, it will. Lady Verza’s influence be for naught.”

“Well,” Tiire replies in a caustic manner, “maybe you should have thought about that before you murdered the Darkest Force-user in the Palace, except Skywalker herself.”

* * *

Obi-Wan likes to sit with her in her room. While the Council doesn’t know what to do with her, Obi-Wan visits her as if she were his friend, rather than one of the men responsible for the fate of her students on Orvax.

“I can get you a plant, if you like,” he says, eager. “It’s a good way to connect to the Living Force.”

“Plants and I don’t get along,” Anakin says wryly, watching him sit cross-legged across from her on her carpet. “And I’m a Darksider, most of the time. I don’t need plants to find the Force.”

“How _do_ you find the Light, when you know the Dark as you do?” Obi-Wan asks her, curiosity leaking through.

Anakin shrugs. “The Force is all around us. It’s just how you reach it that matters. I’ll admit that it’s easier with negative emotions to reach the Dark – they’re powerful and genuine. Reaching the Light is discipline. It’s asking the Force for an agreement, rather than taking what is offered.”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan taps his bare chin – Anakin can’t wait for him to grow a beard, to be quite honest. He looks strange. “I see,” he reflects, mulling over her words before asking, “How old were you, when you studied the Light?”

Anakin cocks her head. “Nine. Why?”

“You’re intriguing, Lady Vezra,” he says with a cocky grin, one Anakin wants to wipe off his face. How, she has no idea. She just wants to. “I must say, our conversations are…enlightening, to say the least.”

“Skywalker,” Anakin replies. Obi-Wan pauses, confused. “My name – the slaves called me Vezra for a bird on Orvax. My real name is Skywalker.”

“Lady Skywalker,” Obi-Wan murmurs, nodding slightly. “It suits you.”

“I know.”

Obi-Wan smiles at her and Anakin feels her belly flop, butterflies filling her at the sight of his bright eyes. Just the way he looks at her makes her feel weightless. A deep breath leaves her, a fledgling shame growing in her gut. _You’re forty-seven. He’s a young man – another version of him practically raised you._ Somehow though, Anakin can’t convince herself that the Obi-Wan she knew is _this_ Obi-Wan.

“How old _are_ you?” Anakin can’t help but ask.

“Twenty-four, my Lady Skywalker,” he says and she can practically _see_ the proverbial feathers puffing up. “And though I may not be a Knight as of yet, I trust Master Jinn’s judgement in the matter. I still have much to learn.”

“At twenty-four?” Anakin frowns, knowing it would only have been next year that he became a Knight in her original life. “Isn’t that late?”

“Not for Human Jedi,” Obi-Wan says easily, as if he isn’t breaking Anakin’s worldview – that getting Knighted at nineteen isn’t normal. “The latest I’ve heard of a Human Jedi being Knighted is thirty-one. They went on to become Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.”

“I see,” Anakin mutters, before she reaches a leg out to gently kick Obi-Wan for the sins of his alternate self for _not explaining that._ Obi-Wan pouts.

“Ow. Why, Lady Skywalker, why?”

“Because you need your ego turned down a notch,” Anakin snorts, not expecting Obi-Wan to move, leaning forwards on his knees, arms coming around either side of her to rest on the bed at her back. Her eyes widen at their positions, watching his silly grin widen.

“I think you should say sorry,” he proclaims, still smiling.

“Are- are-” Anakin splutters, hand rising and pressing against his chest. She swallows. They’re close enough that she can smell his ‘fresher scent, like trees and crawling flowers. “What do you want?”

“Nothing untowards, Lady Skywalker. I’d like to get to know you better, that is all,” Obi-Wan winks and Anakin is _frazzled_ , not knowing what to do. Her only sexual encounters were with Padme and that is _not_ the sort of thing happening here.

“I don’t know how,” she says in an embarrassingly squeaky voice. Strangely, this is what makes Obi-Wan’s grin lessen, turning into an uncertain, shaky smile.

“Really? You’ve never… You’re an attractive person, Lady Skywalker. I find it hard to believe.”

“What of you?” Anakin asks, wanting to know. “Have you ever…”

“Yes,” he says, surprising her. A moment of quiet passes, her hand still resting on his chest. Anakin has never thought of being with anyone but Padme. She can’t imagine anyone else in her life whom she might want like this. Well – except _this_ Obi-Wan, maybe.

“May we take this slowly?” Anakin finds herself asking, blinking at her own words. Obi-Wan stares for a second, then nods, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. Her eyes slide shut, involuntarily, their mouths opening to deepen it. She begins to grip the fabric of his robes as they become more entwined, feeling his hand rise, his fingers fluttering around the edge of her jaw, tipping it back.

 _What am I doing?_ She asks herself. _I was married. What would Padme think?_ But another part of her thinks, _it’s been twenty-four years and Padme would have told you to get over her decades ago. Might I not try this?_

Obi-Wan touches her properly, his hand resting on her cheek. Anakin reaches up with her spare hand, tugging at his robes. He chuckles against her lips and they part, briefly.

“Is that ‘slow’, Lady Skywalker? I desperately wonder what _fast_ might be.”

“You, me, a ‘fresher wall,” Anakin can’t help but drawl, the quirks of flirting coming back to her. Obi-Wan gapes before she kisses him again, feeling her confidence rise. They kiss more, deeper and Obi-Wan sheds his belts and outer robes, Anakin waiting until he’s in only his trousers and undershirt to steer him backwards. He watches with unblinking eyes as she takes off her dark hide jacket and boots, shedding the last of his layers when she pauses over the fastenings of her shirt to glance at him.

They press together, moving to the bed, lips locked. Somehow, Obi-Wan gets her hair out of her braid, fingers dragging through the curls, catching at _all_ the most opportune moments. She makes him gasp and he makes her writhe, her nails scratching lines over his shoulders and chest.

“Beautiful,” he mumbles when he kisses her bare chest. A heat builds in her core and Anakin reflexively reaches out in the Force, making him freeze as she entangles herself with him. There’s a brief moment where Anakin wonders if she’s gone too far, before he replicates the process, reaching out into _her_ as he brings her pleasure on the physical plane.

They gasp in time. Obi-Wan worries a lengthy bruise across her neck and shoulder as she wraps her legs around him. Their bodies react and their combined Force signatures flare before they tamp it down, both equally as wary at being caught. They are in the Grand Temple of the Jedi, though – if someone takes note, they’ll very shortly be caught.

“Slow is overrated,” Anakin huffs and Obi-Wan, not wanting to be kicked out of his own Order, lets speed take precedence over any extra pleasure they might derive from a less hasty joining. When it’s over for the both of them, they lay on her bed for a minute, catching their breath.

“Join me in the ‘fresher, Lady Skywalker?” Obi-Wan offers, before hastily adding, “For less pleasurable endeavours.”

“We’ll be caught. I know. Let’s wash up,” Anakin agrees. They untangle their limbs as they untangle their Force signatures, Obi-Wan briefly taking a moment to gather his clothes before they head to the refresher room. Indeed, they do nothing more for pleasure – but before he leaves her quarters, Anakin catches his robes, drawing him in for a kiss.

When their lips part, Obi-Wan’s eyes are dark again. “Perhaps we might do this again, my lady?”

Anakin lets a grin unfurl. “Definitely. You know where to find me.”

At his leaving, Anakin giggles, laughing to herself. She wonders what Padme might think of her choices – but no, hadn’t she once teased Anakin about his Master being so pretty? Padme might even be proud of her for her exploit, for _she_ would never get the luxury.

Anakin giggles some more, not even remembering how long it’s been since she’s genuinely laughed. There had been a few moments over the long years, certain situations that got her snorting in amusement. She’d terrified one poor Imperial guard, once. He’d swayed at his post.

Sighing, Anakin looks to the rumpled bed, idly searching for… _something._ Something missing. Anakin’s amusement slowly dies. _What am I looking for?_ She thinks, knowing it’s important. The Force is being unusually capricious, like it’s laughing at her. _No, no, no – what am I forgetting?_ Anakin heads over to the beds, shaking out the sheets. But they hadn’t brought anything into bed together, had they? All she finds is her hair tie.

“What am I forgetting?” Anakin mutters. What would Padme say? What would Luke say? _Well, for one, I don’t think Luke wants to know about his father’s sexual exploits._

Anakin’s jaw drops in horror.

_Kriffing hell, we didn’t do anything to stop- pfassk! Kark!_

* * *

“Is everything alright, Lady Verza?” asks Madame Nu. Anakin jumps up from her place at the terminal, heart beating at lightspeed.

“Fine. Everything’s fine, thank-you,” Anakin offers her a fake smile that clearly doesn’t work. Stepping away from the terminal that she’d been sitting at for the past five minutes, procrastinating, Anakin makes her way out of the Archives. The Force is laughing at her again.

_Everything is not fine. Everything is not karking fine!_

Rubbing at her wrists, Anakin nearly misses the parade of younglings, barely stopping herself from tripping over one of their tiny bodies.

“Lady Verza, careful you must be,” Yoda tuts, the younglings giggling and laughing at Anakin’s faux-pas. “In such a hurry, you are. Where might be going, you are?”

“Somewhere. Nowhere.”

Yoda hums, looking to his charges. “Lady Verza is going both somewhere and nowhere. How strange. Lady Verza, instead, would perhaps join us, yes?”

“I couldn’t,” Anakin replies, shaking her head. She glances down at the younglings, unable to help remembering that awful night from so long ago. She flinches backwards, imagining a lightsaber in hand, striking the younglings and crèchelings down in their home. “I- I can’t,” Anakin gasps, stumbling over her own feet as she flat-out runs away.

 _Master,_ she can’t help but think desperately, imagining her Master Kenobi who would force her head on straight and make her think about what she’s doing. Anakin doesn’t realise she’s heading towards his old quarters – his new quarters, his _Jedi Master_ quarters that he won’t have for another year yet – until she sees the familiar statue of a Jedi in a Soresu kata.

Anakin slows. Stops. _Where are you going to go? There’s no-one here who can help you._ All at once, Anakin wishes she were back on Orvax, where Kura might see her problems all across her face and drag her into an empty room. Or maybe even Tiire, who wouldn’t hesitate to bring them close together and press their foreheads against the others.

Her hand presses to her belly. The tiny hardness there isn’t visible – but Anakin can feel it.

 _How did Padme die? Was it truly me or was it giving birth to twins along with her injuries?_ Anakin will never know. Now though, all she wants is information. She’s pregnant and she can’t let anyone in the Temple know. No. It would ruin Obi-Wan’s life, for starters, worse than how young Ani is going to come swinging into his life in the next month; and secondly, how does she know the Jedi won’t just try to take her child from her? _Or,_ Anakin thinks morbidly, _my children._ _Did the twin gene come from me or Padme?_

Walking away from her original destination, Anakin heads for the Temple exit, instead. No-one is guarding her – no-one can stop her leaving. All she needs are credits and if she can find a terminal she can hack those. She won’t risk stealing Jedi funds.

Anakin needs to get off Coruscant – _yesterday._

* * *

“Ani Kenjinn, drop-off to Mos Eisley,” the shuttle conductor calls out. Anakin stumbles to her feet, affecting a hunchback and a limp. From behind the curtain of her scarf, she sees the conductor grimace, sand blowing in through the open door.

 _I kriffing hate sand,_ Anakin thinks dejectedly, knowing it all stems from her upbringing here on Tatooine. Leaving the shuttle, Anakin wastes no time in limping out of the port towards the slave quarters. Halfway there, she ducks into an alleyway, turning her scarf inside out and wrapping it around her head like a mask rather than draping it.

“I’m going to find you,” she vows, thinking of her mother. Discarding her hunch and her limp, Anakin makes her way calmly towards her old home. She must do this, she must – or her mother will die. As much as Cliegg Lars was probably a good husband, Anakin never knew him and he didn’t protect Shmi from the Tusken Raiders.

 _Why did they even take her?_ She thinks, mulling over it idly. _It’s so strange._

Shaking off those thoughts, Anakin passes a group of slave children playing in the evening sun, not expecting to see Kitser in among the rabble. _Is that Shoja? Corrin?_ Her eyes flit between each of the children before she abruptly moves on. _No, I can’t. I don’t have the resources to free them. I’m getting my mother from Watto then taking her off this dustball. I just have to explain everything to her._

Her heart aches though. She remembers her childhood as it was – and her friends were a good part of it. She regrets that she can’t free them, that the work she did on Orvax can’t be replicated here.

Walking a familiar sandy path, Anakin eventually finds herself in front of a familiar door. Inside, she can hear C3P0 chattering away and it almost hurts to remember the ridiculous adventures they went on; that he came into Luke and Leia’s care, eventually, is truly the will of the Force.

Before she looses her nerve, Anakin knocks. C3P0’s chatter dies. Anakin waits, fidgeting where she stands, feeling tiny limbs kick inside her rounded belly. The door opens and Shmi Skywalker looks out at her in quiet confusion.

“Good day,” she says, hesitant. “Who are you?”

“My- my name is Skywalker,” Anakin says. Shmi’s eyes widen. “ _May we share stories?_ ”

“ _We must always share,_ ” Shmi replies, opening the door wide. Anakin steps in, eyes everywhere at once. It’s the same as she remembers, down to the last droid part. The only thing missing is little Ani’s satchel and the abundance of desert fruit on their table. “How did you find me?”

“It’s a long story, one you won’t believe at first,” Anakin says, letting Shmi guide her inside to the table. They sit beside each other, after Shmi has offered her a mouthful of water. She takes it, eager, the tradition one she’s long since stopped using and is grateful for reviving.

“Start at the beginning.”

“I’d rather start at the end, actually,” Anakin says, forcing back her tears. She looks at the table. “What do you know of the Sith?”

Shmi replies, “Nothing.”

“They’re the opposite of the Jedi. Cruel. Unforgiving. Darksiders of great power. They manipulate people – kill their own, with vigour,” Anakin describes, filling herself with the Dark Side of the Force. When Shmi meets her eyes again, she gasps. “One found me as a child. I was their perfect disaster. I did terrible things and later, another Skywalker of my blood brought me back to the Light. I killed my master for them.”

“You- your master-”

“He was a Sith and evil beyond measure.” Anakin interrupts, before looking chagrin. “Sorry. You were saying something.”

“Your master,” Shmi whispers. “You killed your slave master for the other Skywalker?”

Anakin pauses. “No. I killed the Sith, my Sith Master, for my son. He was torturing him in front of my eyes. I stopped him, but in the process…I died.” A moment of silence passes, before Anakin says, “Then the Force brought me back. I was in a new body, of a woman who died at the hands of a slave fighting ring. My friends tell me her neck was snapped clean in front of them.”

Shmi is pale at her words. “I don’t understand. Why are you here? Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the Force brought me back in time – I’m a child, here in this life.” At Shmi’s expression, Anakin sits up, blurting out, “Kitser was the one who stole from Watto’s shop for my pod-racer. When I was four, you taught me the Sand Song someone from Clan Dustglass taught you, for if you ever needed help. I couldn’t say the first line of the chorus right because of how I’d tried eating sand and hurt my tongue.”

Each word turns Shmi’s eyes wider and wider, until she leans forwards, hand a bare breadth from the skin of her face.

“Ani?” she whispers, voice shaking. Anakin reaches up, clasping it to her skin, teary.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I left you behind! I came back once, but it was too late and you died, you died, Mom-”

“Anakin, my baby,” Shmi grasps Anakin’s face with two hands. “What happened to you? How did a Sith find you? How could the Jedi let this happen?”

“He’s in the Senate, he’s- he’s a Senator for the Republic. He’ll be Chancellor by next double moondark,” Anakin says in a rush. “I had to wait, though, I had to wait until Qui-Gon took young Ani so I could save you. I didn’t know what to do. It took me too long to realise I’d gone back in time.”

Shmi strokes the edges of her face, staring at her. “I believe you. I can feel you’re telling the truth – but your eyes, Ani,” she whispers. “You’re a Sith, as well?”

“I could never be a Jedi, Mom. They never listened. I was _always_ attached – attached to you, to Padme, even to Obi-Wan.”

“And Master Jinn?” Shmi asks.

“Dead.” Anakin shakes her head. “Obi-Wan, his padawan, went on to be my Jedi Master. I resented him, by the end, as much as I loved him.”

“Oh Ani, my boy-” Shmi startles slightly. “Girl. My girl. Stars, I’ve two Ani’s.”

“People call me Verza, sometimes,” Anakin says shyly, letting the Force fade, her eyes turning back to their usual cerulean hue. She doesn’t expect for Shmi to gasp, hands tightening around her face.

“You’re the Verza? The Verza of Orvax?”

“It’s where I woke, last year,” Anakin says, perplexed. “You’ve heard of me?”

Shmi laughs, loud and clear like a bell. For all the sands have worn her down, she still sounds young.

“My Ani- my little Ani, he heard tales of you in Mos Eisley. You’re his hero, Anakin. You’re your own hero,” Shmi beams, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Freer of slaves. You’re a hero, Anakin. You did it.”

“I did it,” Anakin repeats, smiling and then wincing as her baby kicks at her bladder. Shmi catches the motion and Anakin gets to feel the embarrassment of telling her mother she’s to be a grandmother.

“Anakin Skywalker, did you wake up in a female body and then go _try it out?_ ” Shmi asks, unusually sharp. Anakin gapes.

“Not like that, Mom! Kriffing heck, no!” Anakin then gets very lightly hit over the head.

“Language, Ani,” Shmi says, muttering. “Then how? Why?”

“It wasn’t exactly planned,” Anakin admits, swallowing, “and I have no idea what I’m doing. The last time I had children, I wasn’t the one carrying them.”

“The _last_ time?”

“Padme and I got married – or will get married,” Anakin pauses, translating the future in a way her mother will understand. “Little Ani is going to marry the girl who came to dinner. The handmaiden. She’s not a handmaiden really. She’s a queen.”

“Queen?” Shmi blinks.

“Of Naboo. They’re elected, so she won’t be Queen forever,” Anakin says, smiling a little in thought of her angel. “Then she’ll be Senator for Naboo, afterwards. She’s clever and wise and beautiful and I always wanted you to meet again.”

“But I died,” Shmi says.

“Kidnapped by Tusken Raiders,” Anakin explains, joy dimming. “I found you in your last moments, ten years from the last time I saw you.”

“Anakin…”

“I never really got over it,” Anakin admits, “If I’d only paid attention to my dreams more, if only Obi-Wan had believed me…I’m strong in the Force, the strongest there’s ever been. Sometimes, I catch glimpses of the future.”

“Your dreams when you were young…oh, I knew you were going to be great, Ani,” Shmi says, smile trembling. Her hands finally fall, coming to clasp Anakin’s on her lap. Their fingers entwine and Anakin wishes she were a child again, a little boy who could come curl up in his mother’s grasp.

“Mom?”

“Yes, Ani?”

Anakin looks up, their eyes meeting. “I’m going to free you from Watto, tomorrow. Then, I want to leave Tatooine. Come with me?”

“Where are you going to go, Ani?” Shmi whispers.

“Anywhere. We can go to Orvax or Coruscant – Naboo, Corellia. Anywhere you want.”

Shmi’s throat bobs and her mouth opens slowly, tongue wetting her lips. “Home,” she says, almost too quiet to be heard. Anakin’s brow furrows, listening as she says it again. “Home.”

“Where’s home, Mom?”

Her mother doesn’t smile. Her face turns pained and she squeezes Anakin’s hands. “I can’t remember,” she says. “I was too young, barely able to remember my own name, Ani. I don’t remember where I’m from. But I’ve always wanted to go back – I used to be able to remember things, like flowers and mountains. I think they were green. There was so much green, Anakin.”

“Mom,” Anakin says beseechingly, wanting to help but not knowing how.

Shmi shakes her head. “It’s alright. I’ve had a long time to get used to this life. You’ll free me, you say? What shall we tell everyone? No-one will believe you’re my daughter.”

“I’m a Skywalker. That’s all that matters,” Anakin says to her. “It’s not strange, is it? If I pretended you taught me of Clan Skywalker when I was growing up.”

“How old- how old is your body?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Anakin says. “Tiire says I could be as young as sixteen standard years or old as thirty.”

“Well, I’m only thirty-four,” Shmi tells her in a light voice. “How about a middle ground? Twenty?”

It takes Anakin too long to realise what that means. Her voice turns strangled. “ _Mom_ -”

“Shh, my girl,” Shmi squeezes her hands. “It’s not unusual for slaves. It would explain why you didn’t grow up with me and why I’d never have told Ani.”

“Ani’s nine,” Anakin lets out a hoarse bark of laughter. “But Mom, you- you were- at _thirteen?_ ”

“I was lucky. Slaves have been sold for their bodies at young, Anakin.” Shmi’s voice is unusually solemn. “It didn’t last long. Gardulla found me entertaining for other reasons, soon after. She thought it a waste to let them have me like that after I showed her I could count cards. I was useful.”

“ _Useful_ ,” Anakin repeats in revulsion, gripping her mother’s hands tight. For a while, they sit, thinking of things they rather wouldn’t.

Eventually, Shmi brushes her finger across Anakin’s belly. “You’re going to be a mother,” she says, surprisingly calm.

“Well,” Anakin fidgets, before joking, “I’ve already been a father. I might as well complete the set.”

That gets a laugh out of her mother. “Tell me about them. Your children.”

“I had twins. Luke and Leia – they weren’t raised by me or Padme, so I never knew them growing up. I thought they were dead, actually,” Anakin describes. “It’s a long story. But Luke grew up with his uncle, while Leia was brought up by the Organa’s – Queen Breha of Alderaan and her husband, Senator Bail Organa. Princess Leia, they called her.”

“You reach high places, Ani,” Shmi murmurs. Anakin flashes her a grin. “And Luke – his uncle? Does Padme have a brother?”

Anakin’s mouth goes dry. “Step-brother,” she says, fidgeting. “My stepbrother.”

Shmi’s eyes dart upwards. “Anakin,” she says sharply. “What are you talking about?”

“In- in my time, when you were taken, I followed the trail from Watto to Cliegg Lars. He’d bought you, then freed you.” Anakin looks down, ashamed. “Married you. He already had a son. Owen brought Luke up. I know he loved his aunt and uncle very much. They were good people.”

“…you were always possessive,” Shmi whispers. “You never wanted to let me go. You never did, apparently.”

“I’m sorry, I messed this up-”

“No,” Shmi says sharply, reaching up to take Anakin’s chin. “Listen to me, Anakin. Wanting to save me is nothing to be ashamed of. If surviving means never meeting this man, I’m sure I’ll live. You’re here. You’ve saved me from that fate. Don’t be sorry, Ani. I’ve never met him.”

“I’m still sorry,” Anakin says softly. “You sounded like you were happy.”

“I can be happy with you, my darling,” Shmi says, smiling. “I will always be happy with you alone. I don’t need a husband to make my life rich with joy. I have you – and the baby in you, as well. We’re Skywalker’s.”

“Alright,” she says.

“Alright,” Shmi repeats, before standing. “Have you eaten?”

“I had something on my ship over.”

“Then it’s bedtime for both of us. We have an exciting day tomorrow.”

* * *

Watto takes the credits offered – then Anakin pays for their tickets to Coruscant. Shmi shivers in the cold of space, but Anakin helps her stay warm, offering her jacket.

“How do you have so many credits?” Shmi asks her.

Anakin doesn’t answer and Shmi quietly settles again. When they arrive on the Core world, Anakin holds onto her mother tightly, leading her into the depths of the city-planet as she stares at every new sight to be held. Eventually they find themselves in the tiny apartment Anakin had arranged to be kept empty for the rest of the year.

“There’s a bed where you can sleep,” Anakin shows her, before she goes over to the box of things she’d left behind. It’s with great care that she brings out a copy of the device she created on Orvax for finding the slave transmitters. “But first, I’m going to get your transmitter out.”

“ _Oh,_ Anakin…”

“It’ll hurt,” she warns her, “once I find it. We might have to go to a surgery and get it taken out professionally. I’ve seen slaves die or lose the ability to walk because their transmitter was taken out of somewhere delicate.”

“Can- can we afford that?” Shmi asks, wiping happy tears from her eyes.

“If we can’t, I’m sure the Jedi wouldn’t begrudge us. In fact,” Anakin smiles, “maybe we should pay them a visit.”

Shmi almost nods, but she hesitates. “I- but I wouldn’t want to hold him back. Or distract Ani.”

“Mom- Mom, I’ve got to be honest with you. Even if you had your transmitter taken out, it’d take a lot for them to let you send Ani a message, let alone see him. It’s not their way. Attachment is against their way.”

Her mother droops. In the Force, Anakin feels her pain as if it is her own. Instead of comforting her, Anakin uses the scanner to find her mother’s transmitter, discovering it’s location in her shoulder easily.

“I can tell you what to say, if you wanted to send him a message saying you’re okay,” Anakin says quietly, after she’s found it. “You’d have to focus on the fact that Ani will be freed of the burden of knowing his mother lives in slavery, so he can let you go on and live a new life as he is. The Jedi may not tell him you’re on Coruscant, but I grew up always thinking of how we left you there.”

“Will it make him a better Jedi?” Shmi asks her.

“The burden of knowing you were out there, chained, was always the worst doubt in my life. Knowing you’re safe…” Anakin trails off, thinking of how her life would have gone, had she known her mother was freed. She makes to hug her mother tightly, but her bump gets in the way. Shmi doesn’t seem to mind, breathing in deep as her arms wrap around Anakin. “And if they don’t tell him, I will,” she says, determined.

Shmi leans back. “They’d let you get near him when I can’t?”

“I know the Temple like the back of my hand,” Anakin says flippantly, grinning. “And they know me. I have a room there.”

“A room?” Shmi narrows her gaze, trying to parse out _why_ Anakin would have a room. “Anakin…”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’d think you’d better tell it,” says Shmi, drawing Anakin to the bed to sit. “Start from the beginning, this time – the _real_ beginning.”

* * *

Sneaking into the Jedi Temple is a matter of knowing how to act. Anakin, although she may be a Darksider most of the time, is perfectly capable of having inner peace – if she’s _focused_ , that is. As it is, when she enters the Temple, she’s halfway into a meditative trance wearing a loose brown Jedi robe, hoping on the twin suns of Tatooine that no-one asks _why_ she’s here.

Thankfully, it’s Anakin’s lucky day and she finds her way to where Obi-Wan and Anakin are staying easily. Cheering herself on, Anakin knocks, leaning against the wall as she taps repetitively on her thighs.

The room door opens, little Ani looking up to meet her gaze. The physical change that goes through him – his back straightening, his expression flattening into something he sees as ‘serious’ – is remarkable and disheartening at the same time.

“Master Jedi,” he greets.

“Padawan Skywalker,” she greets in turn, voice quiet. She can hear Obi-Wan inside, along with someone else. Not wanting to give herself away, Anakin keeps her Force presence at minimum, focusing on little Ani. “I have a message from Shmi Skywalker of Tatooine.”

His expression is adorable. Anakin didn’t realise she was that precious as a child. His eyes light up and his Force presence swells, a blistering happiness that shocks Anakin down to the bone. Her eyes widen.

“You have a message from my mom?” Ani exclaims. Inside the Jedi quarters, Anakin feels alarm and a familiar, sour-wine annoyance.

 _What in all the universe_ -

The door opens wider, Obi-Wan at Ani’s shoulder and behind him, a very much alive Qui-Gon stands fast, expression ludicrous.

“Lady Verza, what are you doing with my padawan?” Qui-Gon demands.

“That depends,” Anakin can’t help but say, “Which padawan? Because both are interesting.”

“Anakin, get inside – this woman is no Jedi,” Qui-Gon states, taking his shoulder.

“ _Don’t let him push you aside, little sun,_ ” Anakin is quick to say, Ani gasping at her use of the slave language in front of strangers. “ _They don’t understand us and I don’t have much time._ ”

“Who are you?” Ani demands, two hands reaching up to dislodge Qui-Gon’s grasp. Qui-Gon looks down on him with a furrowed brow. “ _Tell me who you are, stranger!_ ”

“ _I am the storyteller,_ ” Anakin kneels in front of him, palms outstretched. “ _I am the one who walks the sands and tells the tales of our ancestors. I am the Skywalker, as you are, Ani._ ”

“Skywalker,” Ani breaths, reaching out to take her hands. Anakin squeezes them, feeling the Force sing between them. She can’t help but unravel, her half-trance state falling away. Their Force signature sing in concert, Anakin’s maturity and control giving her away as the elder, while Ani is still young and wild.

“ _You are my brother – by memory and blood. Our mother is safe. I freed her from her chains. No longer is she a slave. Her life is her own._ ”

Ani’s breath hitches, before he flings his arms around Anakin’s neck. Anakin holds her younger self up, his childish weight resting against her body as she kneels. Behind him, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon watch on in confusion.

“ _She’s truly free?_ ” Ani asks. “ _And you are my sister?_ ”

Anakin sighs in contentment. “ _Truly, brother. She is safe, living on a Core world._ ”

“Where?” Ani questions, turning back to Basic as he ends their embrace. “What planet is she on? I want to see her.”

Anakin links their hands again. “She has a new life, now. You parted ways, Ani. It is not the Jedi way to allow attachment. I came here to tell you she was freed so you might let go, knowing that she loves you and wishes you the best things in life.”

Ani’s Force-presence buckles, their synchronous song becoming jagged and cut with hurt. “I want my mother.”

“No, Ani. She says so, too. You’re so young, yet so old,” Anakin reaches up, tugging on his padawan braid. “You have a whole new life and your mother doesn’t fit in it.”

“And you? You’re my sister and you control the Force, I can feel it,” Ani accuses. Anakin tries to ignore how Obi-Wan stiffens in surprise. “How do you get to have her and not me?”

“I’m no Jedi, little brother,” Anakin smiles bitterly. “Just ask your Master. He knows the Darkness I claim as my own. In truth, I shouldn’t be here – or rather, I shouldn’t have left. I know not if my room is empty, but if it is still mine, then I say that Obi-Wan might show you there when you wish for peace of a different kind.”

“Why do you get to have her?” he asks again, though, petulant and childish.

“I don’t. I didn’t have her, the last twenty years of my life and I won’t, now,” Anakin says, voice sharper than intended. “We Skywalker’s are slaves and always have been. Just because we are freed now, does not mean what we were is erased. You think differently from these Jedi and they will try to teach you their ways; it will work, but only to a point. You must learn everything anew or every Jedi teaching will be lost to you.”

Ani won’t budge, though, “You get to see her, though! You get to talk to her and love her and-”

“And what, Ani? You were told when you left that love is something you have to leave behind. Attachment isn’t the way of this Order,” Anakin interrupts, reaching up to tap his forehead, spinning her words in a way that she knows will affect Ani the most. “Let it sit in here, the knowledge that your mother is safe, freed by the Verza of Orvax and you, the Jedi Padawan, Anakin Skywalker, can trust your sister to keep her that way.”

As expected, Ani’s eyes widen and the hurt in his Force-presence dulls to almost nothing. “The Verza of Orvax?” he whispers, “She is you?”

“Do you trust me, Ani?” Anakin asks him, watching him nod decisively.

“You’re a freer of slaves – you take them from their masters and give them homes,” he says.

“I do,” Anakin says. “So, do you trust me when I say I shall protect your mother in your stead? That I will keep her from further harm and take on this responsibility for as long as I live?”

Ani’s eyes are bright. “I trust you,” he says and there is a crackling throughout the Force, like the air before a lightning strike. Ani goes on, saying, “I will be a Jedi, the best there ever was, bringing peace to the galaxy – and you’ll protect her, freeing the slaves, Verza the Skywalker.”

“I swear it,” Anakin promises, swearing an oath in their slave language and pressing a kiss to either of his palms. Ani reciprocates, leaning forwards to kiss her forehead, then her palm, too. Anakin smiles at him, watching him beam at her, his Force presence shine outwards like a sun. It’s mesmerising and Anakin wonders if this is what Luke could have been like, in a universe where he didn’t have to hide.

Ani lets go of her hands, stepping back and craning his neck to look at Qui-Gon. “Master Jinn,” he says, happiness clear. “Please meet my sister, Verza. She’s going to look out for my mother for me.”

“I heard,” Qui-Gon states, voice low and almost mellow. He looks at Anakin with clearer eyes, inclining his head. “Lady Skywalker.”

“Master Jinn,” Anakin says, still kneeling. Her confidence falls – she does not want to attempt standing up, not with her rounded belly. But it will look strange if she doesn’t get up, soon, so she reaches for the doorway, using it as a help to stand. The expression on Ani’s face turns fearful at her measured movements.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, slightly frantic.

“No, little brother,” Anakin shakes her head. “Just…just something you don’t need to worry about.”

Obi-Wan slips past the younger padawan, their twin padawan braids so strange to look at. _How did Qui-Gon get permission to have two padawans? Is Obi-Wan slated for Knighthood? What happened on Naboo? Did he kill Maul or was it Qui-Gon?_

“Lady Skywalker,” he starts, offering his arm, worry clear as Ani’s. Anakin clutches his arm, avoiding Qui-Gon’s inquiring gaze. “Are you hurt? You do not have to lie for Anakin’s sake.”

“I am not hurt, Obi-Wan. Trust me in that,” Anakin says, knowing that if he gets any closer, all will be revealed. She squeezes his offered arm, reaching to kiss his cheek before she steps back, letting him go. “I must depart.”

Obi-Wan steps closer, though, insistent. “Verza, please,” he whispers. “Your face shows all. You cannot lie.”

Anakin grimaces. _Awesome,_ she thinks sarcastically, before she shakes her head, glancing at Ani.

“I have to go, now. Look after my brother, Obi-Wan.”

“I will,” Obi-Wan says, sounding regretful as she backs away, walking away from them all. “Will you come back?”

Anakin pauses, glancing back at him. His padawan braid seems all the more distinctive, from far away, bound with yellow and red. Her smile is flat.

“As many times as I can sneak in. I promise.”

Obi-Wan’s shoulders drop and truly, her face must be an open book if he reads her so well. He bows in respect, smiling gently as she nods in return.

Anakin wants to kiss him again, damn it all to hell.

“We’ll see each other again,” she assures him, before fleeing. It takes her several hours to return home to her mother – and when she gets there, the first thing she does is look at herself in a mirror.

“What are you trying to find?” Shmi asks, amused.

“Am I really that obvious a liar?” Anakin asks.

Shmi pauses.

Grumbling, the Chosen One stalks off to her room, where Shmi can’t see her silently scream into her pillow.

* * *

It’s only a month later that Anakin realises there might be something strange about her pregnancy.

“I think I’m getting kicked and punched in multiple places,” she tells her mother, edging along her hypothetical theory that she’s having twins. Shmi, recalling her two non-existent grandchildren, pauses where she does the dishes from dinner and replies in a steady voice.

“Have you seen a healer?”

“No,” Anakin grumps.

“You should,” Shmi advises, “I’m not a healer, Ani. You need to go to a real hospital. What if something goes wrong?”

“I can’t go to a hospital here – they’ll want to check on them and if they’re anything like Luke and Leia, their midichlorian counts will be higher than mine ever were,” Anakin frets, Shmi asking her what a midichlorian is.

Eventually, Anakin makes the decision to go off-planet, to somewhere the Jedi won’t have connections in the hospitals. Anyone who takes her midichlorian count – takes her _children’s_ midichlorian counts – will contact the Jedi. So, she needs to find a planet that doesn’t answer to the Jedi or at least will be discrete.

Who were the most discrete people she knew, once upon a time?

“Ke nu’jurkadir sha Mando’ade.” Anakin says to herself: _Don’t mess with Mandolorians._

Mandalore is in sector O-7, just outside the Expansion Region. Anakin takes a freighter out to Bandomeer, which is when she runs into trouble with the Mando’ade.

“Mandalore is under lockdown, except for home-owners and those with family,” the Mando’ad tells her, voice unfamiliar. It would be – but it’s still jarring, after being used to the Clone Troopers. The orange paint on their armour makes it almost worse.

 _Satine Kryze is Duchess of Mandalore,_ Anakin thinks distantly. _She met Obi-Wan during the Civil War._

“You have to leave, miss.”

“I’m acquainted with Satine of Clan Kryze,” Anakin decides to say, giving his armour a proper look. “You’re from…Kelborn?”

The Mando’ad physically startles, straightening up. “Yes, miss. Clan Kelborn, born and bred. Clan Kryze, was it?”

“Yeah. I was last here, accompanied by Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

The Mando’ad nods sharply, offering an arm to lead her forwards. Anakin takes it, surprisingly eager to take all opportunities to be treated like the more delicate party. The Mando’ad escorts her through the shuttleport to the docks dedicated to crafts flying to Mandalore, arranging her amongst the other Mandalore natives.

One of them sitting next to her motions to her pregnant belly. “Ad?” they ask, saying _child_ in Mando’a.

“Ade,” _children_ , Anakin corrects. The person – a dark-skinned Mando’ad who looks younger than Anakin would expect for someone travelling alone – puts a hand to their chest, a joyful grin on her behalf appearing on her face. “ _Do you travel by yourself?_ ”

“ _I head home to find my beloved, whom I might marry,_ ” they say, “ _My Bo-Katan._ ”

Anakin straightens – well, as much as she can with the heavy weight on her front. “ _Bo-Katan, of Clan Kryze?_ ”

The Mando’ad blinks. “ _You know Clan Kryze?_ ”

“ _Satine befriended my…_ ” Anakin hesitates, before delicately saying, “ _a member of my family. They were here, during the Civil War, nearly two years ago, now. Satine and Obi-Wan were very close._ ”

“ _I am Mihko,_ ” the Mando’ad greets her, offering her hand to shake. Anakin does so.

“ _My name is Skywalker. Verza Skywalker. In all honesty, Mihko, I hoped to take use of the hospitals here. I had many Mandolorians for family, who I called siblings._ ”

“ _Are they on Mandalore?_ ” Mihko asks.

Anakin shakes her head, bracing her arms around her chest as the shuttle groans around them.

“ _Why come to Mandalore if they are not there? Do you hope to greet their Clans?_ ”

“ _It’s a complicated tale, but no. I’m here to greet Satine, in the hopes our mutual acquaintance might bridge the gap between us,_ ” Anakin tells Mihko. “ _I have my own reasons for wanting to have my children on Mandalore._ ”

“ _You are no Mandalorian,_ ” Mihko says, no judgement in his voice. “ _What right have you to raise your children here?_ ”

“ _None,_ ” Anakin states. “ _But I am a warrior in my own right. I protect those who I love the most the only way I know how. I seek those of a similar mind, to keep my children from being taken from me as I was from my own parent._ ”

Mihko registers the importance of her words, hissing under his breath, but he shakes his head. “ _The Duchess Satine, the sibling of my darling Bo-Katan, they have declared Mandalore a peaceful planet, discarding the warrior ways of old._ ”

“ _If only it were that simple,_ ” Anakin says, even though she knows that ten years from now, Satine would have nearly completed her goal, with only the Death Watch to show for it. “ _You still have a peacekeeping force. I know it exists._ ”

“ _Remnants of an old life,_ ” Mihko says, glancing at the few Mando’ade inside the shuttle, returning home. “ _Satine will not stop until all arms are laid down. All._ ”

Anakin decides that she will be honest to Mihko, then. “ _I flee the Jedi. They see me as a danger and I would not have them take my children from me. They are not slavers, but their actions are the same._ ”

The Mando’ad looks to her sharply, wariness lingering in the air around him. “ _But you are a parent. To bear a child with the intention of keeping it…is love not sufficient? Are you incapable? They cannot make that decision for you._ ”

“ _My children are Force-sensitive. I am a Force-user,_ ” Anakin says and somehow, she ends up spilling her life to this Mando’ad, starting from when she killed Nyarla the Hutt all the way to the decision made with her mother to come to Mandalore.

To Mihko, at the end of their long talk, the shuttle heading planetside, she says, “ _You are good to listen to me. You remind me of Tiire and Kura._ ”

Mihko smiles at her, chin trembling. “ _Verza, your tale is too outrageous for me not to believe it. I see your side and I feel your pain; the Jedi claim to be peacekeepers, but what did they do once the War ended? They left – and Satine builds our society again from the ground-up, alone. The Jedi are heartless. May your child’s soul rest easy, knowing they saved their siblings from the Jedi’s brainless mercy._ ”

“ _Child? Siblings?_ ” Anakin questions, confused.

“ _Your Maranne,_ ” Mihko says, tilting his head. “ _They are your child, are they not?_ ”

Speechless, Anakin thinks of what she knows of Mandalorian culture. She knows that the 501st Legion called Anakin their brother – _cuun_ _vod._ Rex told her that in Mandolorian culture, adopting adults into the Clans was far from unheard of, especially during war – back before Satine’s overhaul of Mandalore, that is.

“They were, weren’t they?” she mumbles to herself in basic. By Jedi and Sith standards, they were her padawans – but a Mando’ad would call some her children, some her brothers and sisters and some her parents, even. A fair few of her students were old enough for it. Anakin has been embraced by Mando culture before and it feels as right as it does to call them her students in the ways of the Force.

Tears prick at her eyes. “I miss them so much,” she says, voice raw. “And Maranne, oh _Maranne._ They killed her. The Jedi killed her, Mihko and they left my mother behind when they took little Ani. They’re heartless – you’re right.”

Mihko wraps his arm around her shoulders and sings an old song in Mando’a, one Anakin remembers being sung by her battalion in the mess of their star-destroyer. Anakin leans into it, letting her emotions consume her. She thinks of Maranne and of Dinari, who looked so shattered by her death; she can still remember how the Force felt, full of his weeping and his loss. She hopes Tiire and Kura have been taking care of him – that her students found their way back home, eventually.

They exit the shuttle, stepping into the capital city of Mandalore: Sundari. It’s made of durasteel and blue glass, with trees and their square leaves dotting the landscape with green. Mihko keeps her in his company, leading her to where he last knew Bo-Katan to be staying – Sundari Palace. The closer they get, the more worried Anakin becomes.

“What if she tells me to leave?” Anakin asks Mihko, who shakes his head at the use of Basic.

“I endorse you. My citizenship is affirmed the day I marry, but I am a _Mando’ad_. They cannot say no. Satine can order you gone, but she will not.”

“And Bo-Katan? What if she thinks me untrustworthy? Will you do as she says?”

Mihko sends her a look, “Verza, you are a child of Mandalore. Your _vode_ love you. You are a Mando’ad as much as I am.”

“I’m from Tatooine,” Anakin mentions hesitantly, but Mihko’s Look turns disappointed.

“You are a _Mando’ad_. Wake up the rest of your brain, Verza and come with me to see Bo-Katan and Satine.”

“Alright – alright, I’m coming.”

* * *

There is a child in a bassinet. Said child has light auburn hair and _Anakin can do the mathematics, thank-you._

“Korkie, right?” Anakin stares, having heard Bo-Katan introduce him to Mihko, who looks quite stunned at the sight of said child. Anakin looks to Satine, who purses her lips and looks away. “Alright,” Anakin drawls, “so I see you’ve _met_ Obi-Wan the same way I have.”

That gets her.

“ _What?_ ” Satine exclaims, aghast. Mihko blurts out a laugh before cutting himself off at the lovely Bo-Katan’s arm-smack. Satine looks ill behind the beautiful hair and fabrics draped across her shoulders. She steps towards the crib, tentatively reaching for the half-moon shroud over his head, where an animal mobile hangs over his head.

“Why are you here?” Satine asks her, voice faint.

Anakin puts her hands up, “I didn’t mean to intrude or guess, just- the timing is awfully coincidental.”

“It is,” Satine says, “which is why Bo-Katan was going to claim him as her own with Mihko, if he agreed.”

“A son?” Mihko mutters, sounding quite awed.

Satine nods crisply, but she looks like she’s barely holding herself together. “Obi-Wan left me for duty. He does not know about his son.”

“I haven’t let on, either,” Anakin mutters, looking to Korkie again. She imagines what her children might look like – maybe something like them, but with her new pale skin, or perhaps the grey brush mark on her forehead. _What did Luke and Leia look like as children?_

A wry, hurt smile expresses itself on Satine’s face. “I am a fool, then, for loving him so.”

“No. You’re not a fool. That’s Obi-Wan,” Anakin corrects her, stepping closer and touching the bassinet with her index finger, trailing along the painted swirls and dots. “He fell in love. It is not the Jedi way – it’s that of the Dark, actually.”

“Jedi do not love,” Satine utters and they are Obi-Wan’s words. “He would not have been a Jedi, had he stayed.”

“I have no doubts about why Obi-Wan was with me,” Anakin proclaims, though she does not know Obi-Wan’s true thoughts on the matters. She can only guess. “One night. No more. He and his Jedi Master came to my home. If they hadn’t, the Jedi would not have come – my student, Maranne, might not be dead.”

“Maranne was her child,” Mihko says, stubborn. Satine glances at him before looking back to Anakin.

“Guilt? Obi-Wan is not the type.”

“Feeling responsible for mistakes not his own, though – that describes him, doesn’t it?” Anakin asks, not waiting for an answer. “We became friends, after they took me to the Jedi Temple.”

Satine’s head tilts. “And why would they bring you to the Jedi Temple?”

Anakin is unapologetic. It has taken her time and confidence, since her death, to own this. “I am a Darksider. I can reach the Light if I so choose – and I will, for the sake of my children. There’s no-one stronger than me, who might counter me in strength, except perhaps my brother; but he is young and untrained."


End file.
